"You are a brick, Pollyooly.

But all the same you're my guest here; and it's not the function of a guest to clean her host's house.

I ought to have remembered it and had it cleaned before you came." "But I liked doing it.

I did, really," said Pollyooly.
"You are undoubtedly a brick--a splendid brick," he said enthusiastically.
Hilary Vance was one of those great-hearted men of thirty who crave for sympathy; he must unbosom himself.

Pollyooly was not quite the confidante of his ideal; but his mentor, James, the novelist (not Henry), was in Scotland; and the salt sea flowed between him and the Honourable John Ruffin.